


Concrete Beggars

by aPaperCupCut



Category: Cyborg 009 VS Devilman, Devilman (Anime & Manga), Devilman Crybaby - Fandom
Genre: 009vs horse ryo, AU, Alternate Dimensions, Amnesia, Bad Writing, Dimension Jumping, Dimensional Travel, LOTS of violence, M/M, Memory Loss, OOC, POV Changes, Short Chapters, This is cursed, Time Shenanigans, Violence, akira is 19 and Ryo is 20, and also demon posession is a Thing That Does Not Happen To Akira, do i know whats going on? kinda but also not really, dont ask me where the title came from ok its a joke, everything is a lie, god doesnt even know what the fuck is happening, i mean its gotta be if its 009vs ryo/pre-amon crybaby akira, lots and lots of 'who are you? who am i??? wtf why do i have a gun??', main character death (mostly just the demons i swear this has a happy ending), mystery (ooo-ooo), pre-amon crybaby akira, that should be trademarked just for me, yup chiquita dave is the only ryo here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 10:33:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14330586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aPaperCupCut/pseuds/aPaperCupCut
Summary: Ryo Asuka wakes up with no idea who he is, where he is, or what he was doing the night before. Not that a hang over could ever explain the fact that he woke up in an abandoned building with way too much money, an unidentifiable gun, and a note claiming him to be Ryo Asuka, a demon hunter. Ryo Asuka doesn't really know what to make of this, but you can bet your ass that he's going to do the best he can - even with no past, no name, and no memories, he's still gotta keep moving forward. And that goes pretty well, all things considered, until he meets a curious guy named Akira Fudo.(basically a what-if of what if dimension travel between time loops was a thing and what if Amnesia happened)(theres a lot of stuff going on and both Ryo and Akira don't know the half of it. I mean, dimensional war, yknow)





	1. Ryo Part 1: Or, the bit where Ryo doesn't know jack shit

**Author's Note:**

> hey this is the fanfic that shows exactly what i like to read and write!!! dimension fuckery, time fuckery, mind fuckery, and most of all Violence. 
> 
> but, uh, this also gonna be a fic where im just gonna go 'fuck it, my writing is basically all kinda flat shit, lets just do what i want!!!' and, well. that means short ass chapters :/

A creaking; it sprung from the darkness, haranguing in his ears. He sucked at his teeth, and listened to the quiet cacophony of sound it created with the dry echo of old concrete. He lay in stillness, mind empty of thought; simply laying, swallowing the sound around him, eyes closed, relaxed.

Then, something happened. Something unknown; one moment, he lay, contented, and then the unknown sprang upon hin, just like the sounds - except instead of simply being, it shrieked as it fell upon him, pounding empty fists and jostling his once hollow brain.

_What… where am I?_

And suddenly it was like a dam had broken; fragments of thoughts rained on his head, and his eyes popped open to let the light in.

He was staring up, at jagged edges of ceiling. It was full of pockets, the concrete smattered with nicks and gouges. He lay still, for awhile, brain growing cold.

_Where am I?_

The thought shifted, and repeated. Again, again, and he found himself completely overcome with the feeling of loss. Loss for what, he did not know; but it soon gave way to fear instead. And fear, oh, he could understand fear.

Frightful, frightful, and he sat up, shaking. He rolled his eyes about his skull, searching for familiarity and finding only dread.

The room was empty, and filled with light, which poured in from several broken windows and an askew door. The windows looked out into a bright hallway, which was also filled with light from even larger, shattered windows. Wind whistled through the room, and he unconsciously squeezed his coat around him.

There was trash on the floor, and the wallpaper was peeling away to reveal cement walls underneath. Just like the ceiling, it too was wounded by time. The bed he lay upon was little more than a slab of stone, cold, unyielding. When he looked up, he saw a hole that went on, seemingly for miles. He could see a glimmer of blue, far above him.

He found himself shaking, again, and wound the coat tighter around himself. He pressed his feet to the floor, but stayed sitting, doubting his ability to stand.

Beside him was a small bedside table, with a drawer and an unlit, unplugged lamp. Beside the lamp was a scrap of paper.

He snatched it up, grasping, desperately, for anything - he didn't know where he was, didn't know what this place was, his clothes felt thick and itchy and unknown on his skin, and he felt another question dawning on him, and he didn't want to hear that question, didn't want to think about it, _couldn't_  think about, was _terrified,_  terrified--

On the paper, scribbled in a sloppy hand in black ink, was an answer to the question.

_You are Ryo Asuka. You are a demon hunter. You must find and kill the demons._

_Who am I?_

He was Ryo Asuka.

_Who is Ryo Asuka?_

He was a demon hunter.

_But demons aren't real. Who wrote this?_

He didn't know.

( _\--hedidntknowhedidntknowhedidntknowhedidntknowhedidntknowhedidntknowhedidnt--_ )

He shook his head, clutching his temple, fear pulsing hotly in his blood.

This… this was unknown. Whoever wrote it had not written anything else, had explained nothing else - no, nothing at all.

He couldn't believe everything he read.

But… he had nothing else.


	2. Ryo Part 2: Or, the bit where Ryo psyches himself up

He slowly came out of his thoughts, his thoughts which garbled soundless and nonsensical words into his ears. The one drawer in the table held nothing except a strange, compact device - like an older phone, with a keypad and a screen, and a long antennae coming out from the top.

It compacted when he pressed on it, so he put it into his rather large front right pocket. Anything would help, he thought. But putting it in let his hand brush against a strange object, located around his upper thigh. Confused, he pulled the side of the coat away - and his eyes landed on a gun.

A sleek, glinting, gun.

Hands shaking, he pulled the machine out of its holster, holding it loosely. His eyes felt wet, felt dry. He didn't understand.

The barrel was long, as long as his forearm. It glowed silver, black handle warm against his palm. He didn't understand.

He slid it back into the holster, and covered it with the trench coat. He didn't understand.

He rose from the concrete slab he had been sleeping upon, mind cold and hollow. All he could feel was a slow, crawling ball of confusion, roiling in his chest, unsure and tepid with the promise of panic.

He refused to let it push him down. He refused.

Looking around the room, listening to the wind that blew harshly against the building, felt the draft rustle his hair. There was no doubt that this place was abandoned; no doubt it was due for demolition soon. And while it was quiet now, he didn't know when that may not be true.

Glass crunched under his shoes. He felt the floor move, slightly, under his feet as he walked; rocking with the wind, impossible to determine the safety of. Down the hallway, an empty crevice, possibly where the elevator used to be, announced the floor level in bright red paint. He was twelve stories up, and for a moment he wondered how many more levels the building had.

The stairs were relatively intact; he got down, back to the earth, unscathed and unharried.

The building was cordoned off, curled piles of earth sitting around in undisturbed peace. Taped against the fence was confirmation of his fear: demolition was due, but when he couldn't tell. He did not know what day it was.

At the thought, he realized he didn't have any money, either; no identification, no money, no knowledge of where he was.

( _or who he was._ )

Inspecting himself revealed four different pockets; two on his sides, under his arms, two towards the front. He hesitated, for a brief moment; trepidation stilling his hand.

But standing there, the wind chilling his fingertips, the cold nipping his ears, he realized that he had little else.

He brought his hands to his eyes, letting the fear mull in his gut, letting his restlessness, his bravado, build.

His fingers were long and lithe, with stiff knuckles and trimmed nails. He had calluses on his fingertips, on the inside of his thumb; but the pale colour of his skin was unbroken, except for three small freckles on his left hand. At the thought, he broke his gaze, looking out into the street instead.

Empty. Just like his future would be if he didn't have something useful hidden in his pockets.

His right pockets revealed nothing, except for a short, pale grey thread, and a small puff of fuzz, as well as the strange device from earlier in his front pocket. His left side was more fruitful.

Inside the back pocket was a roll of bills - how many, he couldn't tell - and a red debit card. Inside the front pocket was an identification card.

An identification card with a picture, a name, an age. Ryo Asuka, age twenty, with a heavy lidded gaze, a deadpan expression, gold hair thick and tousled, bangs curled into points around his jaw. Soft, but there was an almost undetectable sharpness in the man's face, in his posture, in his eyes.

It was the sharpness that said, yes, he would indeed have an unknown firearm and a thick wad of bills and wear a goddamn trench coat, of all things, out in public.

He curled his hand around the card, his heart trembling.

This would tell him what he needed to know.

( _whoamiwhoamiwhoamiwhoami-----_

_who am i? do you know, ryo asuka?_ )


	3. Ryo Part 3: Or, wherein Ryo tries to act casual

The man in the mirror stood tall, back straight, hands pressed against the filthy sink.

His hair was pale blonde, almost white under the glow of the gas station bathroom light bulb. It curled around his jaw, in thick tufts of pointed waves. It fell down his neck, sticking slightly against his neck. His eyes flicked to and fro, icy blue, eyelashes white against his pale cheek bones.

He looked at the man on the i.d. card again, mind abuzz. His eyes roved over the details - the height, the weight, the blood type. The picture.

He… was almost certainly the man in the picture, but something wasn't quite right.

His hair was pale, his face long, his eyes half lidded, relaxed. His nose was long and prominent; his hair was just as thick, but it was longer and, confusingly, messier and yet neater than the man's in the photo.

He was Ryo Asuka, yes. He was. But just slightly off…

He didn't think he was twenty years old, he didn't think he was that short, and he certainly didn't think he was that pretty. If anything, he almost looked ugly; like a poor imitation of something beautiful. Like a false rendition of a beloved idol.

( _it made him feel… filthy._ )

“Ryo Asuka…” He almost jumped at the sound. He had wanted to test the name, but his tongue felt heavy, his voice unfamiliar. The sound was deep, curtailed by something poisonous - like he was being sarcastic, like he was bemused or irritated by something.

But the name was warm, it was… familiar.

“You are Ryo Asuka.”

_No, **I**  am Ryo Asuka._

It was the first thing that truly felt comfortable. It felt like he knew it. It felt like he understood it.

He stepped away from the mirror, inhaling shakily. He looked upon his body, cataloguing what he wore in the back of his mind. A white, loose fitting turtleneck; black slacks and well maintained leather dress shoes. Broken in, of course; no stiffness prevented him from movement, and soreness was absent, despite sleeping in them for hours. His trench coat was a light beige colour, tight across his shoulders.

He ran a hand through his hair, absently bemused at his own gratitude - he wasn't wearing the same clothes as the Ryo on card, and his gut said that that was lucky.

After a moment, watching his own eyes flicker to and fro in the mirror, he sighed. Where he went from now was uncertain, but at least he knew what he looked like.

_At least I have a name._

He exited the restroom, and wandered the aisles of the gas station. He had rushed to the restroom as soon as he had entered the gas station, and now took the opportunity to buy food and water. His purchase was quiet, although he had to fib to the cashier - that he was foreign, that he didn't know how much to pay them. They only took four of the bills he had, smiling broadly. He worried that he may have underpaid them.

Once he was back outside, he chose a direction and began walking.

The only sound was the click of his soles against the asphalt, the wind dieing down to a low whine. Very few people were wandering about; the town seemed grey, almost, with how few people were around. He could've sworn the sky had been blue, when he had looked up the strange hole in that building, but the clouds now blocked out that distant colour.

The few people he did see were shuffling hurriedly forward, eyes locked on their shoes, shoulders tense. A few had phones out, fingers frantic on the screen. Those people walked even faster than the others.

As he continued walking, a strange feeling slowly crept up his spine, and he slowed his steady gait.

He felt their eyes on him.

Ryo turned, quickly, down a narrow alleyway, between buildings. The space was damp and dark, barely any light from the dim sky reaching in between the buildings. It went on for a fair distance, disappearing into blackness. But Ryo stopped before he could go further, falling back breathlessly against the brick wall. The wet and cold sank into his back, and a whine spilled into his ears. He closed his eyes for a moment, listened to the thump of feet as passerby continued their business, listened to the drip-drip-drip of gutter water sliding down the building walls.

Ryo grasped the front of his coat, forcing his lungs to steady in their frantic desperation for air. Slowly, slowly, air reached his lungs and his brain stopped stuttering. Nobody had been following him. Nobody had seen him.

( _nobody had seen him._ )

Then, opening his eyes, he saw that he had the gun in his hands, knuckles white, safety off; gleaming barrel pointed out into the street. With a shudder, he loosened his tight grip and flicked the safety back on. He was slowly getting used to the weight on his thigh, the ignored weight on his mind.

He slid it back into the holster, exhaling shakily. And something clunky fell out of the holster, clattering against the pavement.

A phone. An old, scratched flip phone, blue colour dull and faded. He stared at it, blood rushing in his ears, mind blank. A phone. His phone. He had a phone.

Picking it up took only a few moments, but it felt like an eternity had passed between bending to touch the smooth plastic and rising to look closer at the unknown device.

There was a bit of white, curling tape covering the front. Opening it, the screen and keys lit up. Blue screen, then a blank home menu.

He inhaled deeply, mind whirring.

_‘Today is March 14, 2049. You have 0 new messages, 0 new mail, 0 new notifications. Battery power is at 264%.’_

It moved like a smartphone, despite its appearance; a fluid touchscreen, with the typical array of applications. Opening the tabs button revealed two windows, both whited out from inactivity. A Notes tab and a browser tab.

He paused, let it sit in his hands. Wondered if he should open either tab, whether he should drop the phone, whether he should leave well enough alone. He had money. He had identification. It wouldn't be difficult, it wouldn't be difficult, it wouldn't be.

_But I need something. I need something._

**Notes - 4th entry, July 27, 2036**

**Yet again today I woke to a sound unknown.**

**5th entry, August 28, 2037**

**Yet again today I woke to a sound unknown.**

**6th entry, September 29, 2038**

**Yet again today I woke to a sound unknown.**

There was little else. The earliest entry was July 27, 2036; the latest was January 8, 2040. All of them said the same thing.

He had so many years missing, and yet all he had given himself was a useless phone, with nothing to gleam about himself, other than that he had probably been unstable. He withheld the anger, the frustration, let the feeling bleed from his eyes, and unclenched his tightening grasp.

A cacophony of questions, none of them answered, none voiced.

The web browser was no better. Nine tabs open, several of them of an article talking about demons in a strange typeset that made his head throb. Several were simply blurry images of an artist's sloppy rendition of the Demon Courts of Hell.

He sighed, dropping his hands at his sides. Leaned back, felt wet stone scrap against his hair and skull, and sighed. The sky was a perfect blue for only a second; then, grey, shapeless clouds obscured its unnatural pigment.

Ryo let himself daydream, for a moment, that it was raining and that he could feel the cool flecks of clean water against his flesh. Then he shook his hair out of his eyes and picked up the phone again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> u can bet your butt that the cashier took $400 bucks, yo. also i really wish i could give spoilers, but i wanna keep the mystery :D but, just in case, this Ryo IS 20, there are lots of time shenanigans here folks
> 
> also i find it so funny, but when i wrote this part, i intended to go back and put a little easter egg at the beginning of the story, but when i went back i found out it was already there!! 50000000000 cookies to anybody who picks it up


	4. Ryo Part 4: In which Shit gets Real

He returned to the place his life had seemingly started - the abandoned, nameless concrete structure, swaying eerily in the darkness. Night had fallen suddenly, the clouds reflecting only faint glimmers of the town’s orange lights. The few people that had bussled by had disappeared, as if they had never been.

Ryo wondered what he would do in the morning, but a heavy ache inside his chest displaced the thought.

He found a room on a lower level with a bed - albeit a creaking one, with two legs missing at one end. He'd sleep at an angle; he oddly felt comforted at the notion. Ryo would be able to leap up at a moment's notice. He mused that the thought was yet another piece of evidence that he had probably been a very strange, perhaps dangerous individual.

His dinner consisted of several jerky sticks and an orange juice. Ryo carefully took stock of what he had: a tweaked phone with no contacts, an i.d. card, several thick wads of cash which he couldn't identify the value of, a modified gun, a red debit card, four packets of sandwiches, and three bottles of juice. He didn't know why he hadn't gotten water instead, but any foods requiring cooking would have to wait. He promised himself to buy a camp stove in the morning.

He told himself he wasn't terrified of tomorrow.

( _barely a day awake and petrified at the thought of waking tomorrow with memories gone once more._ )

He pressed his fingers against his eyelids, felt the cloth of sleep flutter at his temples. The skin of his hands was cold and clammy against his brow. He sighed, a rushing exhale followed by a deep inhale. No need to worry, no need to worry, no need--

The building shook, unnaturally. A siren, an air siren, screamed, screamed--

He was on his feet before he could think, already rushing towards the door, heart pounding.

As he sprinted down the hall, the sound of his footsteps echoing all around him joined with the moaning of dozens of people - and the unhurried, shlorp of something messy.

Ryo’s feet led him to the empty doorway for a darkened room, the pitchblack like static against his eyes. Static silence; the moans had stopped, the wet smack of flesh had stopped.

Two pinprick, yellow orbs opened.

And Ryo looked down, unable to stop, and saw the blood pooling at his feet. A nasally exhale, but not from him. No, not from him.

The room seemed to flicker and sway, light suddenly bursting into his retinas, near blinding, as he stood, frozen, eyes unblinking, burning. _(burning.)_

The walls were covered - _covered_  - with strings of wet meat and dark green ivy. Faces peaked from under mounds of pulsating, bloody flesh, eyes rolled back into their skulls, pus bleeding from their orifices. All was in disarray; hands thrown out, scrambling, reflexively, against their unnatural bonds; every body trembling, writhing, at the thorn covered vegetation, at the throbbing tumors lining the walls. As if he had fallen into the stinking stomach of a demon. _(and maybe he had.)_

He turned, body jittering with adrenaline.

_Anticipation._

Its eyes squinted, half circles of humour. Its twisted, gaping mouth, saliva pouring out in waterfalls, teeth sticking every which way. All Ryo could hear were the moans. Its smile dissolved.

**「No, no, wait, if you--!」**

**There was a gun, pressed into its malformed skull.**

Ryo’s ears rung. Something wet slithered down his jaw, bubbling from his ear. His face was wet; he licked his lips, tasted something acidic. The stench of sulfur bled into the air.

The thing slumped over. Its neck agape. Black blood oozed down its body in rivulets.

He felt light. Floating. His head spun; his ears caught bursts of sound haphazardly. The bodies were deathly silent; stillness, broken only by the erratic seizing of the organic, bloody nodes. All around him, the bulbous, flesh-lined walls spat out black blood, turning yellow too fast to be healthy.

Not that getting your head blown off was necessarily healthy, either, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

_No. Beggars couldn't be choosers._

Ryo shook his head, ignored the feeling of chunks of matter sticking to his hair, to his skin. He brought his gun to his hip. Felt the warmth of the barrel and ignored the pieces of a half eaten, slimy corpse of a woman he stepped delicately through. Towards darkness again, out of the buzzing room, back to the emptiness of the building.

His heart was curdling, his brain hiccuping with ill humour, with ill horror. Ryo was ill. Ryo was sick.

Ryo knew what he was for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thats Ryo's section!!! Next will be Akira >:)
> 
> again, my tumblr is @ agriefstrickengame.tumblr.com in case yall wanna know spoilers, and my art blog is cheegleflight.tumblr.com

**Author's Note:**

> i had to fuck around with fuckin,,,, html shit so itd look at least half way decent, yall better be grateful ok
> 
> (also reviews are really really appreciated!!!!!)


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